


Samson

by ravenstrange



Series: Save Tonight [7]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: A lot of hurt little comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Song Challenge, Time Jump, discord group chat shenanigans, i have also been told this made people cry, i have been told i am a pain machine, mama welles is the best, oh the pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:48:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29573445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenstrange/pseuds/ravenstrange
Summary: "You are my sweetest downfall. I loved you first."But it had been two years.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand/Female V, Johnny Silverhand/V
Series: Save Tonight [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2114709
Comments: 10
Kudos: 64





	Samson

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ruruie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruruie/gifts), [Beammeupbroadway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beammeupbroadway/gifts).



> Based on "Samson" by Regina Spektor.

With everything that she had gone through to get herself a new proxy, there had been a promise that life would be different. It was. For a little while, struggling against the dying light of Night City to find her new place within the world. Her body was not the same, foreign to everything she had once had. The scars were not the same, the little imperfections she had grown accustomed to over years of use. Slowly over time, she worked to replace the art she once had over her body; his gift to her had been the last she moved over.

The hesitation born from the realization that by recreating it would not bring him back. It had been two years. If there had been any hope, any chance of reuniting, it was long gone now. There was nothing left but the memories of a man she knew would be destined to haunt her all her life.

She is long moved out of her old apartment in Watson. She takes a smaller house on the outskirts of the City proper, a smaller house in North Oak she does not actually deserve but only takes on the insistence of Kerry. There are not too many people left in the wake of the events of what happened; friends are either long gone or passed away. She is not the legend that she thought she was, never wanted to be the legend that people _think_ she is now.

It all feels empty. History books would not remember her. Would not remember the exact details of what happened, but she made sure she would.

Anniversaries were remembered every six months. Visiting the Columbarium twice a year, sometimes more, to honor what was lost.

There is not much more left in Night City for her, but she stays anyway. She stays for the false hope that her vivid memories might return to be real, that her desire to just feel whole again. The downfall of hope was having any of it at all.

The second-year anniversary is not one she wants to spend alone. Kerry joins her at the Columbarium, they share stories they have shared too many times before but laugh and cry as if it is the first time they have heard them. She spends time at his house before she leaves; he is off on tour soon. She tells him she is considering leaving Night City for good.

She has said it hundreds of times, but he knows that she will not. They both know neither of them will, still hanging onto something that will never come. Her sweetest downfall, always loving and longing for the past.

They part on a hug, Kerry’s hand squeezing her shoulder. He tells her that maybe this year will be different, a look in his eye that hides something he is not telling her. She does not want to agree with him, because they make the same promise often. Maybe things will be better, maybe things will change, maybe they will both move on with their lives. All she does is nod, the familiar acceptance of what cannot be changed before they part ways.

The right choice is to go home.

She has not always been good at making the right choice.

The opposite of the right choice is in front of her now, the smell of oil thick in the air. This is not where she should be. She should not get out of her car. She should not walk to where they once sat and spoke. She should not sit down beside where she had carved his initials. She should not carve stone to metal ‘ _the man who saved my life’_ beneath it.

But she does.

She has not been out here since that night. It is somehow worse to be here than it was to be at the Columbarium. Being there, she is only hit with the reminder that the city swallows everyone whole eventually. Being here, she is hit with the vivid memories of everything they ever said to each other. The memories of every stupid thing they ever screamed at each other about. Every small gesture they did towards each other.

Her fingers trace over the carvings she has made, as she fights against the heat under her eyes. Her hands are shaking, until she realizes that all of her is shaking.

She expects him to glitch over to her, to put a hand on her shoulder. Sit with her in silence, still feel the presence of him so close to her. But she has not had that sensation for two years, and she will not get it now in the place that holds so much weight.

They had agreed that they would fight, that they would try to come through on the other side together. But it had not worked out that way. She tried everything she could to get him back, but nothing panned out. Every single lead that she had, seemingly disappeared overnight.

The tension in her shoulders feels heavier today than it ever has. Alone in the oil fields, she refuses to break. She refuses to release all the fear and grief she has held onto for years because that would mean it was final. That would mean that she had given up.

Was she ready to give up?

It would be so easy to finally cut and run. To finally just leave everything behind, to just disappear into the night. Try to drive away the empty feeling that she had been struggling against, only to find herself drowning over and over until she woke up gasping for air the next morning. A constant feeling of falling into a darkness, sans a light nor helping hand to pull her out.

She could not bring the columns down on the walls she had built, could not destroy a single one. The more time passed, the higher the wall became. The thicker the wall became. To remember now how she had once been, to sit here, starting across to where he one sat wishing for a marker, anything at all, to be remembered by. She had become his marker. She had become his walking memorial and she could not even look at herself anymore.

Grief is all consuming, but she still fights against it. She refuses to let a tear fall; she refuses to grant herself that release. This is not her original body. This is not the body that held onto, these were not the lips he kissed, this was not the skin he caressed, this was not the heart he held.

This was a shell. _She_ was a shell.

And what would he say to her now, to see her in such a state? He would fight her, she knew. He would yell at her, tell her to get her shit together. He would tell her to keep fighting.

But it had been two years.

So yes, maybe she was ready to give up. Cut and run.

When the sun started to set, when the darkness took over the fields, she took one look back before she drove away. But she could not steer herself away from the city, not yet. There was one, singular goodbye that she would grant herself before she disappeared.

Because if she had not been in the oil fields for two years, she had not stepped into El Coyote Cojo for even longer. Hands still shaking with energy she still refused to release, the bar was quiet. Familiar, and yet changed in ways she could not describe.

Pepe took one look at her as she got to the bar and immediately yelled for Mama Welles, and as the older woman engulfed her with a hug, she still refused to break down.

“Come,” Mama Welles spoke with quiet and calm authority, a worry in her tone that she had not held for her since she showed up on her doorstep with Jackie needing a place to stay.

She does not know why she brought herself here. She is not sure why she felt the need to close this one chapter that she had not closed before.

But Mama sits across from her at the table upstairs, as Pepe brings them a bottle of tequila. He leaves them alone, and there is a silence between them as Mama pours them both a glass.

They silently take the shots back, before more is poured, but V does not touch the second one. She stares at the bottle, Jackie’s favorite, and refuses to look his mother in the eyes.

She moves her hand over V’s on the table, tenderly calls her _daughter_ and asks what is wrong. The words do not come, and when V tries to open her mouth to speak, she cannot get anything out.

Instead, Mama talks. She tells her about what she has been doing since Jackie’s death. She tells her what has been happening in Heywood, she mentions that she has been following what V has been doing. “I know you went through something, child,” and says it so sweetly that V wonders if she _does_ know.

“I—”

“You have not been here in years,” she continues softly, her hand still over V’s. Comforting, the gesture threatens to break her down. Almost. “I can see it on your face. You are suffering, love.”

Her eyes fall to Jackie’s bottle between them, and Mama moves her hand to pick up the bottle. She runs a finger over the label, silent as if waiting for V to say something. Once more, she tries to. Tries to say something but what escapes is a sob, quickly cut off as she puts her hand over her mouth and hangs her head down.

“When we lose something so important to us, we lose ourselves in pieces,” Mama speaks quietly, “At first, the change is small. The sun still rises, but it is not quite the same. The moon still shines, but it is not as full. The world keeps turning, but it can feel as though it moves without you. But it moves, child, waiting for you to _join_ it.”

V feels the weight around her shoulders get heavier. She feels the weight of the tags under her shirt, the movement of the metal against her skin as she shifts in the chair. Her nose is red, her eyes are puffy, but she still will not allow herself the release. A punishment she continues to give herself, never properly grieving. First, for Jackie. And then, for Johnny.

She keeps her lips pressed together in a thin line as she raises her eyes, meeting Mama’s across the table. “I could have stopped moving when I lost my Jackie. I did, for a little while. But the world moves on. I needed to move with it, I needed to stick to the path that I had chosen for myself. We all go through loss; it is what you do _after_ the loss that makes the difference.”

“I…” She struggles against the weight on her chest, the pressure behind her eyes, the way her hands tremble. “I don’t have a path.”

“You are someone to everyone now, V. Is that not what you and Jackie wanted?”

“I don’t want to be someone to everyone. I just want…” Her eyes fall again, and she swallows the bitter taste of the sob she will not let go.

“The world keeps moving, you need to keep moving too. Do not run, love. Keep fighting.”

_Good luck, V, and never stop fighting._

She inhales a shaky breath as she gets up from the table, excusing herself quickly. Promises to call, promises to visit more, promises she is not sure that she will keep.

How she runs from the bar is not dignified, and when she is alone in her car, she almost breaks down. His voice runs through her mind, pulls at the weight on her chest, pulls at the tags around her neck, pulls her to drive anywhere but here.

She goes where it is safe. Where she should have gone before.

She goes home to her hidden house in the hills.

It is dark when she arrives home, arriving to her smaller quieter life she had not known she wanted for herself until there were too many missing pieces of herself to find scattered around the city. A home that no one would know to find, unless they knew exactly what they were looking for. Only one person knew of its location.

Her home remains as she had left it, dark sans for the small light outside her door. It is not until she gets closer to her home, that there is something new. A soft yellow light, coming from her home. Where there had been no light when she left.

The door is soft, silent as it opens, softer as she shuts it. The quiet lock of the bolt, silence settling within the walls and surrounding her like a blanket. As she moves forward, away from the door, her boot hits something not there before.

Next to the bag she keeps by the door, for the day she finally cuts and runs, rests a black suitcase she had never seen before. It has no tags, it holds no hint of who it belongs to, but it sits next to her bag like it is supposed to be there.

She takes off his jacket that she always wears and hangs it next to the door. She puts her keys away, sets her gun on the table.

The light still shines at the end of the hallway, flickering in and out, dancing against the shadows of the objects she knows are in that room. She wants to turn the light off. She wants to fall into bed, and not wake up, she wants to stop fighting against every ache in her soul that she cannot soothe.

She had been so hard on herself today, of all days. The emotional exhaustion setting in, as she slowly walks down the hall, the weight on her shoulders so much that she almost falls to her knees.

_Good luck, V, and never stop fighting._

And she wants so badly not to let him down.

But it has been two years.

When she steps into the living room, her eyes fall to the light source first. Her fireplace, never used before, was lit. The fire dances and crackles against the wood, an older tradition of warmth that felt so strange to have in such a modern home.

The fire breathes and moves, the shadows dance around the room, the light catches on the chair in front of the fireplace.

A man is sitting there, and when he sees her at the door, he stands. She feels her lip quivering, her heart frantically pushing against the weight that has held it down for so long as she steps into the room, and more into the light.

He wears a dark button down, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, dark slacks. His hair is much shorter, slightly more clean-cut but somehow fits him. His facial hair is the same. The silver of his arm catches in the firelight, and when he reaches out for her, that is it.

V makes it two steps towards him before she collapses to her knees and he is quick to join her. She finally cries, sobbing as she throws her arms tightly around his neck, her entire body shaking. He wraps his arms so tightly around her; he holds her so close to him, he lets out a gasp of air, a sob that matches her own. The dam has broken and there is nothing that stops her now, fingers curling around the soft fabric of his shirt, his face buried in her hair. His metal fingers press into her back, and the pressure serves to remind her that this is not a dream. For this to be a dream would be too cruel. She could not, would not endure if it were not real.

When she pulls back, she is a mess. She can barely see past the tears she has finally let fall after two years. Her hands are to his face, eyes searching his, breathing broken as she gets out, “Johnny?”

His smile is soft, a mix of emotions cross his face as he gently uses his thumb to wipe her tears away. “Oh,” he says softly, voice breaking, “ _V_.”

Every single brick around her comes crashing down rapidly as she cries again, as she rests her forehead against his, their noses brushing against each other for the briefest of moments before his lips are on hers. A tender and slow kiss, wet from the tears she cannot seem to stop, desperate for the contact that she has longed for, _needed_ for so long. He pulls her flush against him, as he takes all her fears and doubts from her. He takes all her sadness and replaces it with hope, he takes her into his arms, and he does not let go.

He kisses her until their lungs burn, a momentary reprieve before she is desperate for him against her again, a constant desire to hold onto him. To stop herself from slipping under, to stop him from slipping away. The world had moved without her, but she had stood still – for good reason, as validation was kissing her so desperately, she felt as if she would simply dissolve without him to keep her solid.

When they move off the floor and to their feet, he takes it a step further and lifts her into his arms. He carries her bridal style towards her bedroom, she gently whispers directions into his ear to guide them. When the only light in the room is the moonlight, she stops him from turning on the light. Gently, she steps to the floor, as he is with her once more. Her fingers delicately unbutton his shirt and pushes it off his shoulders, he slowly helps her out of her shirt. They make slow work of undressing each other, stopping to kiss the newly exposed skin, taking longer than what they had done before.

He does not shimmer blue in the dark or glitch away. She does not malfunction or fade away. Naked and bare to each other, he guides them both to the bed. He kisses every inch of her that is borne to him as she lays on her back, moving his way downward, his hands tenderly holding her down as she writhes against him. He pulls the pleasure out of her that she thought she had lost, crying out his name in love and moans, arching from the bed.

When she is almost undone, he stops, he kisses his way back up to her as she welcomes him into her arms, as she wraps her legs around him as if he were meant to fit with her. When he slides into her slowly, she swallows his low moan with a kiss, and they keep an agonizingly slow pace until neither of them can take it anymore. Until her nails dig sharply into his shoulder, his hands grip onto her waist, and they both chase the release together until there is nothing but their names in the air and the love between them.

He tells her that he loves her, that he missed her, and she cries. She tells him how hard it had been without him, that she was so close to giving up. She speaks of the two years without him, and he tries to hold back his reaction to everything. But he does not, he lets go, he melts against her and with her, until they are once more nothing but love and a light, what she had long thought extinguished.

Finally, beneath the sheets, they do not move. Once words were no longer enough, action was. Kissing, the warmth of his body, the feel of his heart against her own as they moved together; got lost together. She would not lose him again; he would not be without her again. Not after this.

They speak of love; they speak of plans. They speak of leaving Night City and starting fresh; it is what they deserve after years of struggling to make something out of the rubble of what they left behind. She clings to him so desperately that she fears he might push her away, only for him to bring her closer to him, not knowing where he ends, and she begins.

Leaving Night City with him, it would not be cutting and running. Now she knows that eventually; she will come back. She would not leave those behind worried for her, she would not disappear into the night. They talk of what it took for him to come back, of what he knows, but there are parts he leaves off. Promises that it will make sense tomorrow, on one condition.

“Leave with me,” he asks, and she replies with a kiss, of pressing herself against him, his arms wrapped tightly around her once more.

“Yes,” she finally says. He kisses her until the morning light. 

Hours later in the mid-morning sun, the duffle bag and suitcase are packed into her car. Johnny gives her directions to their destination, his thumb running over her hand he holds so tightly as she drives. When they reach the destination, the empty space of an airfield with a private plane appears in front of them.

In front of that, Kerry is leaning against his car with a grin.

She feels the weight of everything again, but this time, it is different. When Johnny squeezes her hand as they arrive, she knows. The missing piece he did not tell her, the secret Kerry did not reveal. When she exits the car, she lets go of Johnny’s hand to run into Kerry’s open arms. She does not ask him how he pulled it off, knowing he will not tell her. All she does is hug him, crying again but this time overwhelmed by the kindness not many had shown her. A kindness not often shown to the three of them through the years.

When she backs away, Johnny slips his hand into hers. Kerry is the first to board the plane, and they board shortly after them, destination unknown to her but knowing they would return one day.

They do not need their history written down; they do not need the city to remember them; they know it will not. But her sweetest downfall is no longer her biggest weakness but her strength. With his arm around her shoulders, lips against her hair, he whispers truth to their lives and future, to their new start.

**Author's Note:**

> The original draft of this was 1,400 words. Then I was told to make it longer. So....I made it longer. And more painful. Whoops?


End file.
